


My kingdom come undone

by partialresonance



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Getting Together, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, M/M, Pre-Canon, Religious Content, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25538533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/partialresonance/pseuds/partialresonance
Summary: Yusuf and Nicolo lose their religion, but find each other.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 8
Kudos: 165





	My kingdom come undone

Nicolo had eyes like crystal fire.

Yusuf watched him sometimes, as he stared at the stormswept beaches of their homeland. Theirs, because neither could agree on whose it was, and so in the end it became both. Their homes, their lives, their deaths intertwined—Yusuf could see the way Nicolo mulled it over at night, the way his pale eyes became flat with resentment and despair.

The Muslim stronghold laid in rubble on the cliffs above them. Smoke had stained the sky for too many days to count. The armies had moved on, leaving only Yusuf and Nicolo here to wonder at their fate. They stayed together because there was nothing else to do—and every once in a while, Yusuf thought, they might have considered if it was worth it to try to kill each other one last time.

“I am leaving today,” Nicolo said.

Yusuf looked up from his meal. The last dregs of the stew they had shared that night were growing cold in his camp dish, and he balanced it on his knee as he regarded the other man. Nicolo was standing in his stained white Christian’s tunic that flapped against his knees in the wind. For a moment, Yusuf regretted revealing that he spoke Nicolo’s mother tongue. It had been in the heat of battle, when he had cursed the heretic invader as his sword slid home, spitting in the other’s face as the light left his eyes. If he had only kept to his own language, he could pretend not to understand Nicolo now.

“And where will you go?” He asked, looking down at his meal again. His spoon scraped against the rough-hewn bottom of the bowl before he lifted it to his lips to drain the last drops of the bland stew. When he lowered it again, Nicolo was looking at him, and those eyes said nothing.

“Anywhere. Away from here.”

“Then I wish you well. Safe travels,” he said, then burst into bitter laughter. As if there was anything in this world that could threaten them.

Nicolo grimaced and stalked away. Yusuf knew where he was going. He had erected a simple cross made of driftwood and knelt there often to pray. If he was anything like Yusuf, he was praying for death to claim him and end this farce. Yusuf watched him go. Nicolo had a natural grace to him that Yusuf had come to appreciate, even before their reluctant ceasefire on this muted shore.

The first time he noticed it was when Nicolo had leapt from his mount after the animal had taken a spear to the chest. He was just another Christian then, cutting a path of destruction through Yusuf’s forces—a whirlwind of white tunic and flashing silver chainmail, his visage a calm in the storm. Nicolo had cut them down with a coldness that Yusuf, whose blood sang with battle rage, who screamed his victories to the sky and beat his chest to rally against the terror of certain death, had not understood. Not then. He thought he did now.

Nicolo did not leave that night.

When Yusuf awoke it was drizzling. The rain had doused their campfire until it was nothing more than a pile of muddy grey ash. A chill had worked its way deep into his bones, and he wondered if that could kill him, or if he was only immune to violence. When he saw Nicolo standing a few feet off, staring out at the angry sea, he decided to ask.

“Have you ever been sick, Nicolo?” He called out, still rubbing sleep from his eyes. The hard pebbles of the rocky shore had left red indentations in his face from sleep, and when Nicolo turned to look at him Yusuf thought he saw amusement flashing in those eyes. They were grey today. His thin brown hair was uncombed and dull, like this place was washing all the color from him, and the thought struck a note of panic deep within Yusuf.

“Not that I can recall.” He turned back to the sea again, his hands folded neatly in front of him. Yusuf made a sort of facial shrug at that, and rose on creaking limbs. He walked a dozen feet or so from their sad little camp to wash his face in the salt water and take a piss, and when he returned he came to stand beside Nicolo. He looked out at the sea as well, wondering what it was the other man saw. Yusuf saw nothing but a vessel that carried invading forces to his homeland—or, if God willed it, smashed their boats to kindling against the cliffs that made this place such a strong foothold in their kingdom. Well—it had been once, but no more.

“Do you think we’ll grow old?”

“I think that God has a plan for us, and it is not our place to question it before He wills it to be known.”

“Well, I would have liked to find out a different way.” Yusuf had always been devout, of course, but waking up after death had shaken him from his faith. He knew Nicolo was wondering, too, what his place was in all of this. Surely there was no room in God’s plan for the likes of them. All men had to die, even Mohammad and Jesus of Nazareth. That he and Nicolo did not was—well. The look upon the face of Nicolo’s commander, when he had seen his fallen charge rise after receiving a mortal wound, had been answer enough to what they would face should they ever go back from whence they came.

“It is not for us to want things, Yusuf.”

Yusuf snorted. He didn’t know what made him do it, but suddenly he leaned to the side and nudged his shoulder against Nicolo’s.

“You are like your eyes—cold as a field in winter. When will the spring come?”

Nicolo seemed surprised. He blinked, tearing his eyes from the horizon and regarding Yusuf as if for the first time. There was something in that gaze that beckoned him, that embarrassed him. Because Nicolo was not cold, not really. Here as on the battlefield, there was something remote about his bearing. He held himself apart and—like the taste of a word on the tip of his tongue, just out of reach—Yusuf almost knew why. He reached for it, the understanding of this man that fate had thrust into his life, but it remained just outside his grasp.

Until Nicolo’s expression changed. His brows drew together and he looked at Yusuf and he whispered,

“Why us?”

And there, in those simple words, in that single look, Yusuf knew.

There was kindness in this man.

The next day, they left together.

The battlefield on the bloody plains above the beach was still strewn with ragged corpses, singed banners, broken wheels and splintered wood. They held their noses, and Yusuf watched the kind light retreat behind Nicolo’s eyes, shuttered for protection from the cruelties of the world, as they scavenged what they would need. They had no mounts to speak of, those left behind by the retreating armies dead or dying like the men that had fought for their side, all of them so convinced they were right, their cause the one true cause. Nicolo and Yusuf looked at each other, and they did not speak until they had put the carnage far behind them.

How long would it take for them to admit that their similarities outweighed their differences? How long before days spent traveling, hunting, and cooking together turned into nights passing longing gazes back and forth, like volleys sent sailing from matched fortresses, always falling just short of their aim? In the end it was Yusuf who took the plunge, who could not escape the pull of Nicolo’s kind eyes. Who put his hand on Nicolo’s knee and left it there, who leaned in and chanced that first, chaste, forbidden kiss.

Nights, days, and nights again. They wandered, drifted, cast about like ships unmoored. The forest was their castle and society their battlefield. They swept through villages seeking supplies, food, and Yusuf learned how Nicolo’s kindness charmed strangers. As it had him. But always they moved on before nightfall, fearing the day some chance misstep would reveal their difference, and they would once again see how unkind this world could be. And still they could not outrun it all, because sometimes demons come to rest within ourselves.

Time passed strangely for them after that, and Yusuf didn’t know how long it had been since the killing shore when he awoke in the night to find Nicolo had slipped from his embrace and padded across their little camp to the edge of the ring of firelight. Yusuf saw the flash of metal only in time for him to yell,

_“NO!”_

And as Nicolo crumpled to the ground Yusuf scrambled to his side.

Yusuf knelt beside him, knees wet with the spray of dark blood that had already begun to soak into the soil. He drew Nicolo into his arms and the man’s head lolled back, revealing a pale face and staring eyes. They were blue today.

Yusuf’s heart hammered in his chest. He clutched the dead man to him, unable to stop the little whimpers in the back of his throat as he stroked Nicolo’s hair—so different from his own, thin, almost like silk—and prayed that all that came before was not some fevered dream.

“Come back. Come back to me,” he murmured—and sobbed in relief when Nicolo jerked in his arms, gasped. The knife fell from his grasp with a soft thud as it hit the grass, and Yusuf laid a shaky kiss on his temple.

“Why would you do this? Why, Nicolo?”

Nicolo didn’t answer right away. He allowed Yusuf’s comforting embrace, seemed to relish in it, turning his face in to Yusuf’s chest and breathing deeply. When he spoke, his voice was muffled against the fabric of Yusuf’s tunic.

“I had to see if it made a difference. If by my own hand I could—“

He gave a little shrug.

And Yusuf asked no more questions, because he wanted no more answers. He kissed Nicolo until the other man was clutching at his shirt.

Later that night, Yusuf traced his fingers down the pale expanse of Nicolo’s chest until he reached the hand that rested on his stomach. He picked it up and kissed each of the knuckles in turn and spoke into his palm,

“I think God sent me here to be with you. You can try to leave me but Nicolo—I will always find you. Until the day you say you are done with me I will be there to clean up all of the messes left in the wake of your ideas. I am charmed by your brilliance and humbled by your kindness, and the power of death is nothing compared to the way I feel for you. Death quakes when he sees us walking hand in hand, because he knows as well as I do that there is nothing more powerful than what we share. I love you, Nicolo, in ways that should not be possible. You make me so much more than what I am.”

Nicolo’s eyes were shining when Yusuf fell silent at last. A watery smile, a quirk of his lips, and he was leaning up, reaching for Yusuf’s face as he whispered,

“You are an incurable romantic.”

For the first time, but not the last.

**Author's Note:**

> Author watched this movie today and had to immediately write something for the immortal husbands.
> 
> Author has not read the comics or done any historical research.
> 
> Author could be persuaded to write more.


End file.
